1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus, and in particular, to a device that records image and audio signals or the like on a disk-shaped recording medium.
2. Related Background Art
In recent years, the density and capacity of disk-shaped recording media have been increased rapidly. Accordingly, image pickup recording and reproducing apparatuses have been proposed which can record not only audio signals but also high-definition still images and motion pictures for a long-time reproduction on a disk-shaped recording medium and which can reproduce the recorded signals from the disk-shaped recording medium.
Further, since a size of the disk-shaped recording medium itself has been reduced, such an image pickup recording and reproducing apparatus has been miniaturized compared to conventional apparatuses using tape-shaped recording media. Such an image pickup recording and reproducing apparatus has also achieved a superior high-speed and random data access capability compared to apparatuses using tape-shaped recording media. Furthermore, the functions of the disk-shaped recording medium have been drastically improved; for example, the disk-shaped recording medium can be easily transported, is more reliable, requires reduced costs, and is more quickly responsive to retrieval operations.
With an apparatus using a disk-shaped recording medium of this kind, as a reduction in size, an increase in density, or the like are promoted as previously described, the density of the components packed in the apparatus increases. Thus, for example, a disk drive unit and a microphone unit for the disk-shaped recording medium may be located close to each other. In this case, during a recording operation performed on the disk-shaped recording medium, a mechanical operating sound from the disk drive may mix into a sound from the microphone as noise.
For example, if a recording operation is performed on a disk-shaped recording medium 900 which is shown in FIG. 17, the disk-shaped recording medium 900 has an inner circumferential recording area 901, a middle recording area 902, and an outer circumferential recording area 903 as shown in this drawing. It is assumed that data has been recorded only in the middle recording area 902, while no data has been recorded in the inner circumferential recording area 901 and outer circumferential recording area 903.
If signals are recorded in the unrecorded areas of the disk 900, it is contemplated that image and audio data may be continuously recorded in the inner circumferential recording area 901 and the outer circumferential recording area 903. In this case, since the unrecorded areas 901 and 903 are discontinuous on the disk 900, a disk drive causes a head to perform a seek operation. As a result, mechanical seek noise (hereinafter also simply referred to as “mechanical noise”) may occur and mix into an audio signal from the microphone.
Then, to solve such a problem, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-293965 has proposed an arrangement that cancels (reduces) noise by sampling assumed mechanical noise beforehand, storing the mechanical noise in a memory in a quasi-noise wave form, and subtracting and calculating the components of actual mechanical noise mixed into a sound from the microphone and the quasi-noise components stored in the memory.
However, the application of the arrangement described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-293965 still creates the following problems:
First, mechanical noise from the disk drive is attributed to non-periodic intermittent operations and it is a complicated combination of a disk rotation sound, a seek operation sound, or the like. That is, the tendency to generate the components of mechanical noise varies significantly with differences of the apparatus from other apparatuses of the same type, the internal mechanism of the apparatus, temporal changes therein, or the operating environment thereof.
Thus, the arrangement described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-293965 requires quasi-noise data of various patterns to be stored in a memory as quasi-noise. Consequently, a memory is required which can store an enormous amount of data.
Further, to detect and apply the pitch of complicated mechanical noise, a large-scale hardware configuration is required, which consumes more power. Furthermore, if the components of mechanical noise in itself generated vary owing to temporal changes or the like, this variation may not be compensated for.